The Apothecary Page 0,54

floor. Benjamin threw his arms around his father, and the apothecary looked surprised, then wrapped his arms around Benjamin, too. I remembered their argument in the shop, and how little Benjamin had wanted to be an apothecary, and I wondered if it had been a long time since they hugged like this. Benjamin was as tall as his father, but rested his head on his shoulder with his eyes closed, like a kid. I had a pang, thinking of my own parents, who were out in the country knowing nothing about where I was.

When Benjamin and his father released each other, Jin Lo stepped forward and extended her hand. “I am Jin Lo.”

The apothecary blinked at her. “You are?”

“Not safe here,” she said. “We go now. You have clothes?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “In our correspondence, I had thought you were—well, a man.”

Jin Lo shrugged, as if she got that all the time. She was extraordinarily pretty, especially when she stopped looking annoyed and looked relieved, as she did now that the apothecary was back.

Mr Burrows took in all of us now. “You’re the American girl,” he said to me.

“Yes,” I said. “Janie. This is Pip.”

“Pip,” he said, still dazed, and he turned to Jin Lo. “How long has it been? Have I missed the test?”

“No,” she said. “We meet at boat tomorrow.”

“What test?” Benjamin asked.

The apothecary rubbed his sticky forehead. “I haven’t finished preparing.”

“You have things you need?” Jin Lo asked.

“Yes, of course,” he said, wiping his face. Most of the ooze had dripped off him now, onto the floor. Benjamin found him a spare pair of spectacles. He took a folded change of clothes from a cupboard and quickly pulled them on, then looked around at his shelves. From another cupboard, he took a black leather medical bag and started filling it with bottles. Jin Lo helped, suggesting items.

“I have to go to the Physic Garden,” the apothecary said, and I realised he couldn’t know.

“The gardener’s dead,” I said.

The apothecary stared at me.

Just then Pip looked up, with a twig of licorice root in his mouth. “Shh!” he said. He pointed to the ceiling.

We listened. There were footsteps upstairs.

“Is there a way out, down here?” I whispered.

The apothecary shook his head. He took a jar of grey powder off the shelf and handed it to Jin Lo, who opened it and nodded, as if she understood. She took a long glass tube from a rack of tools and stuck it into the powder like a drinking straw.

The apothecary picked up his medical bag in silence.

Jin Lo climbed the ladder first, carrying the jar of powder, and I followed close behind her. I saw the backs of two men crouched in the shop, inspecting the disturbed Morrison shelter. I couldn’t see their faces, but I knew from their shapes that it was Danby and the Scar.

Jin Lo crept silently towards the door. I climbed out of the cellar, but I wasn’t as soundless as Jin Lo. A floorboard squeaked, and the men heard me and turned.

The Scar lunged for me, but Jin Lo pulled the straw from the jar and blew a cloud of grey powder in their faces. Both men clutched their eyes. Danby shouted, and the Scar said something in German. He stumbled towards Jin Lo, trying blindly to grab her, but she slipped past him.

We ran through the ruined shopfront and out the front door, followed by Benjamin and his father and Pip. Danby and the Scar tried to chase after us, but crashed blindly into the standing shelves, unable to see.

“Is that stuff permanent?” Benjamin asked as we walked quickly down Regent’s Park Road, but not so quickly that we would draw attention.

“Oh, no,” his father said. “It would be a terrible thing to blind someone.”

“Not so terrible to blind those two,” Benjamin said.

“Oh, yes,” his father said. “Even them.”

CHAPTER 23

The Apothecary’s Plan

The blood drained from the apothecary’s face when he heard how the gardener had been killed. I didn’t think it was safe to go back to the garden, but the apothecary insisted that he needed to. Benjamin and Jin Lo helped him around the corner to my parents’ flat, where I ran inside to tell Mrs Parrish that I was spending the night with my friend Sarah so we could do our Latin homework together.

“Your parents won’t mind?” Mrs Parrish asked.

“No, not at all,” I said.

“In my day, a girl with any looks on her never bothered with Latin,” Mrs Parrish said. “Boys